According to country regulator Spelinspektionen, gambling licence holders recorded a 4.1% decrease year-on-year to SEK5.94bn ($687.9m) in 2020.

Despite an increase in online gambling revenue of 3.6% year-on-year to SEK3.61bn, this figure was still less than earnings in the previous two quarters and not enough to offset the effects of COVID-19 on the land-based sector.

Svenska Spel lottery and gaming machines saw revenue fall 8.5% year-on-year to SEK1.29bn, a recovery of 14.7% on Q1 due to the resumption of gambling operations.

Svenska Spel’s revenue from its lottery brand Tur rose 3.3% to SEK1.18bn, while its Vegas slot machines unit took SEK170m. However, its Casino Cosmopol chain reported no revenue at all as venues remained closed.

The end of the second quarter saw a little over 52,000 individuals suspended for games via Spelpaus.se, the national self-exclusion regulator.

Meanwhile, Swedish gambling operator association Branschföreningen för Onlinespel (BOS) called for a change in laws to allow it to access payment information to gambling operators to block payments to unregulated sites, estimating an online channelisation rate of around 85%.

BOS secretary general Gustaf Hoffstedt commented: "We continue to urge Spelinspektionen to investigate the level of channelisation in Sweden, or alternatively to treat the channelisation reports from our association as official governmental documents. Correct estimates of the channelisation is the number one key performance indicator whether a gambling regulation is meeting its goals or not.”